ASK Musings

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Daily Archive: 22/11/2012

Thursday

22

November 2012

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November 22: Thankful for …

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… so very, very much. As I wrap up this month of posts leading up to today, I’m thinking of all the different Thanksgivings I’ve been lucky enough to share. From ones with extended family through middle school, to the small, simple (and relaxed!) Thanksgivings with just my parents through my college years, to the last 13 Thanksgivings spent in Omaha, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, London/Dublin, Seattle and Munich, I associate this day with the family I was born into and the families I’ve created and joined over the years.

So today I am thankful for my parents, my sister, Austin, my friends from here, from across the country and across the ocean. 

And kittens. Because, come on. Kittens.

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Thursday

22

November 2012

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Final Real Food Weekly Wrap Up

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Well, that was an interesting and challenging experiment We’ve stopped a bit early, leaving the remaining challenges unmet: have at least one locally-produced food item at each meal (we do this already for the most part); go a week with no sweeteners in anything (please); and limit prepared foods to just five or six ingredients (something I’ve been trying to do since I first read over the challenges).

The blog I was consulting for these ideas is not particularly original and has some issues, but I definitely responded well to having things broken down into manageable bites (literally and figuratively). We are definitely continuing to incorporate some items into our food decisions: 100% whole grain, two fruits or vegetables at each meal (that one is still hard but kind of fun). limiting fried and fast foods, not buying things with added sweeteners (or at least added artificial or highly processed sweeteners); avoiding refined oils, purchasing local/organic meat; cutting processed foods with more than five or six ingredients. Which, when it’s written out like that: duh. I don’t think any of this is surprising to people who have read anything on food and health (or, frankly, anyone who has caught the evening news over the last decade). But I think there was definitely value in challenging ourselves. It’s led us to find some awesome new items (like these super fantastically yummy corn tortillas) and forced us (well, let’s be honest, me) to confront the sheer volume of added sweeteners in our diet. We were eating healthful food before, but now we have even more tools to help us make even better decisions.

Most of the time.